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Abstract

The use of personal ornaments by Neandertals is one of the scarce evidence of their symbolic behaviour. Among them stand up the eagle talons used presumably as pendants, in an analogous way than anatomically Modern Humans (Homo sapiens) did. Considering the broad range and time scale of Neandertals distribution across Eurasia, this phenomenon seems to be concentrated in a very specific area of Southwestern-Mediterranean Europe during a span of ca. 80 ka. Here we present the analysis of one pedal phalange of a large eagle recovered in Foradada cave site, Spain. Our research confirms the use of eagle talons as symbolic elements in Iberia, expanding geographically and temporally one of the most common evidence of symbolic behaviour among western European Neandertals. The convergence in use of large raptor talons as symbolic elements by one of the last Neandertal populations raises the survival of some cultural elements of the Middle Paleolithic into beginnings of the Upper Paleolithic.

Author Comment

This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints that will be presented in NeanderART 2018 – International Conference will be held in Turin, Italy, from August, 22 to August 26, 2018. It has not been submitted to peer review.

Average measurements of the opening angle and depth of incision profiles at 30%, 50% and 70% of the grooves total length

Additional Information

Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author Contributions

Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.

Juan Ignacio Morales conceived and designed the experiments, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft, directed the field work.

Data Deposition

We plan to submit a high-resolution 3D digital model of the object analysed along with the paper in the final version. This model can be used to reproduce all the analyses presented here

Funding

This research is financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (HAR2017-86509-P) and Generalitat de Catalunya through (2017 SGR 11) and (2014/100482) projects (PI, J.M.F.). The research work of A. R.-H. was financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (FJCI-2015-24144, Subprograma Juan de la Cierva) and CGL2015-65387-C3-1-P (MINECO/FEDER). The research work of J.-M.T was funded by CNRS UMR 7041 ArScAn équipe Ethnologie préhistorique (Dir. P. Bodu). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

1

I read your paper with interest and attention. Thank you for these new data and reflexion.

This discorery remember the exploitation of raptors mentionned in the chatelperronan from Grotte du Renne at Arcy-sur-Cure (see Julien Vanhaeren Errico 2017 the third men, pp. 111-121; birds bones were studied in detail by Mourer-Chauviré, see upcoming paper, monography of the site).

During the reading I note some mistakes that I refer to you in order to improve your paper. Figure 3: cut marks are on the dorsal view, not on the plantar (such as indicated in the text).

Not one but several cut-marked claws from the snowy owl have been found in the magdalenian from Santa Catalina (at least 3 of them are illustrated in the fig. 12 of the mentionned paper). Exactely 24 claws over 59 (40%) show cut-marks (data available in the monography of the site, Laroulandie 2014 pp. 312, fig. 7, table 6, Kobie, available online).

We are totally in agreement with the mistakes that you have detected (in fact, there are several contradictions between the text and the caption figures that we need improve).

Yes, of course the phalanx is the first or the first toe, its very distinctive between families, genus and... we think between species as well.

Regarding Santa Catalina, obviously we are wrong in the reference to only one phalanx. Thanks for the link to the monograph.

We will correct the draft including your valuable comments.

In reference to two other Chatelperronian phalanges in Julien et al, these are cited in our table S1 as in press. We are in contact with the professor d'Errico who recommended to us to quote as in press since it has not yet been published. If this situation has changed, please we would appreciate a link to the monograph.

We would like to include your name in the acknowledgments of the final publication if you agree.

I'm agree with you that phalang from large diurnal raptors are distinctives between genus and even species.

Concerning Grotte du Renne, the monography (in the Paleo review) is not published yet. Several papers will present the birds bones. In particular, there will be paper from C. Mourer-Chauviré who study in detail the bird bones from the chatelperonnian levels. So you can also cite Mourer-Chauviré in press in the table S1. Some results are already available and published in the following paper : Julien et al. 2017 - Neanderthals of the Upper paleolithic: châtelperronian ornaments and bone industries. In, the Third Man, the prehistory of the Altai. Editions RMN, Paris. In this paper 1 eagle owl talon and two white-tailed eagle talon are illustrated in the figure 1 from the level X and 2 others white-tailed eagle in level IX (fig. 2). So at least 4 white eagle-talons ( 2 in the table S1). Note that the book has been published for an exhibition in mnp, les Eyzies. It exist in French and English. (https://musee-prehistoire-eyzies.fr/sites/musee-prehistoire-eyzies.fr/files/letroisiemehommeprehistoirede_laltai.pdf).

Of course, no problem if you want to include my name in the acknoledgments. It's up to you.

1

This is a very interesting paper that provides new evidence of bird exploitation with a very likely symbolic component

I miss some more information regarding where the phalanx was found in the site, and some more background information of the site. Figure 2 tries to provide too much information at once but I miss a plan of the site and the exact location in bothe XY and in the stratigraphical sequences (at least at the size of the current figure, I couldn’t read it). In fact the Châtelperronian tools may merit a single figure of their own (also with where they were found and their relationship to the finding.

English needs some polishing by a native speaker (I am not myself but I provide some small corrections below).

In general I think this is a very nice paper and I hope that my comments below are useful.

line 75: “the relative novelty of 75 the discovery of this symbolic expression among pre-AMH makes necessary more investigation.”.

I would not use “pre-AMH” as a synonym for Neanderthals as they were contemporary for most of the time and it could be misleading. In any case I agree with the authors that old (and new) collections should be reviewed as it is likely that more cases like this could appear, thus emphasizing the importance of taphonomic analyses in Middle Paleolithic contexts. However I think that this phrase would be better in the discussion.

In the next sentence, I would delete “With this aim” and I would rewrite it into: “Here we present a new case of large raptor pedal phalange with cut-marks associated to a CP context which expands the geographical and chronological limits of this kind of evidence and provides new insights into the emergence of behavioural modernity.”

rather than “condyles” in phalanges it is used “trochlea”, thus you could talk about the groove in the trochlea or in the distal articulation but condyles sounds ackward. Please double-check.

line 161

“it’s obvious that eat talons don’t” -> “it is obvious that eat talons do not” Check throughout the manuscript for contractions and delete them

line 163

“recipes demonstrates” -> “recipes demonstrate”

Figure 1. Just an idea, as the paper says that the exploitation of bird claws was that lasted for 80 thousand years, maybe the different sigs could be used for different MIS periods?

-Another thing. There is too much “blue” south of the Iberian peninsula. This looks very odd to me, as it seems that Africa has been erased (maybe to keep the scale clear?).

Figure 4. Maybe I am wrong, but from the text I have understood that other sites have yielded remains of italicAquila adalbertiitalic in the Iberian peninsula outside its current range of distribution. Maybe this could be shown in the figure? (and maybe a supplementary table, if the authors have it with the Pleistocene record of Aquila adalberti in the Iberian peninsula?-this paper also has a nice paleobiogeographical value that should be underlined)

Table S2

Typos/comments

“cutmarked” -> “cut-marked”

“toot marked” -> “tooth-marked”

Ungulata is no longer used, now “Euungulata” is used. I would write the common name “Indeterminate ungulate”

Thank you very much for the feedback. We will include detailed information on the stratigraphic position of the phalanx and its association with Chaterlperronian elements since we agree with you that it can improve understanding.

We are also modifying the figures in the sense that you point.

Thanks for the suggestions with English, obviously the text needs a specialized review by a native English speaker (luckily it is the mother tongue of one of our co-authors, who will suffer extra work).

We will include the points on the map with fossil remains of italicAquila adalbertiitalic too, it is a great idea (which we had already valued, but in the end we had not included).

We would like to include your name in the acknowledgments of the final publication if you agree.

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